Paper short abstract:

Thousands of South African farm workers still live and work under exploitative conditions in big commercial farms despite changes since 1994 which introduced new labour laws and new democratic municipalities including in rural areas. They still cannot openly join unions and popular associations.

Paper long abstract:

This paper critically analyses the struggles of farm workers working on wine farms in the Western Cape to join a trade union and to win organisational rights from the farm owners. In South Africa, unions have not been able to organise farm workers hence, union density in the Western Cape, as elsewhere in South Africa remain very low.

The experience of the Trust for Community Outreach and Education (TCOE) in supporting a small independent farm worker union to develop a more open, social movement unionism is used as a case study to build the confidence of farm workers (including migrant workers, women and seasonal workers) to join the union.

The paper will critically explore the strategies and the lessons for new unionism, and what these mean for challenging the power imbalance between farm workers and farm dwellers on the one hand, and farm owners on the other hand.